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Although the title Whispers from a
Shallow Grave sounds like it would be some kind of horror movie,
this Ted Newsom film released by Tempe
DVD is actually not a horror movie at all. It's a dramatic reenactment
of a real life murder mystery. Whispers
from a Shallow Grave is the story of the murder of Linda Sobek who
is played by actress / musician Trudi Jo Marie Keck. Although
Trudi is probably more famous for being the founding member of an all female AC/DC tribute band called
Whole Lotta Rosies, she did a fairly good job of acting in her debut starring
role. The film also stars Gerald Brodin as serial rapist and
killer Charles Rathbun. Brodin did an excellent job of playing the
villainous psychopath. Ironically, he
has spent a lot of time playing police officers on the soap operas General
Hospital and Days of Our Lives.

Whispers from a Shallow Grave is a higher quality film than most
that I review. I would say it's about the quality of a made for TV
movie from the 1980s or 1990s or one of the soap operas that Brodin is
frequently associated with. The audio isn't bad and some of the
music is actually pretty good. The picture quality and shot
composition are good enough that they don't distract you from the movie
itself (unlike many of the low budget and no budget films that I
see). The editing was fine within each scene, but the overall
structure of the story caused the order of the editing to be very
strange.

I think the biggest
problem with the film is that the presentation makes it pretty confusing
and somewhat difficult to watch. The story isn't presented
chronologically and it almost seemed like there wasn't much of a plan
for the order of things. You know that the main character, Linda,
is dead right from the beginning and you see the murder at the end, but
what happens in between, and even the murder scene itself, are presented
in such a fractured manner that it's tough to follow. There is
actual footage from the news thrown in as well, so the real Charles
Rathbun and Gerald Brodin as Charles Rathbun both get screen time.
In addition, Linda serves triple duty as a standard character within the
story, a narrator and a somewhat ghostly conscience of the killer.
As a result of that combined with the complete lack of chronology, you
often don't know if the scene that you are watching is a past event, a
narration or vision. Trudy even serves as a witness at the trial
for her own murder. What the hell?

In terms of boobs and
blood, neither one is supplied in enough quantity to merit a
purchase. There are a few scenes with a little bit of blood, but
nothing that I would consider gory. Almost an hour into this 90
minute film, you see some T & A during a recap of Rathbun's past
rapes. However, for those of you wondering, you never get to see
Trudi nude. She does appear in a shower scene, a sex scene, her
rape / murder scene and several photo shoot scenes, but they are all
shot at angles that don't reveal much.

Overall, if you enjoy
those real life murder mystery TV shows, but wish they had just a tiny
bit of nudity or if you wish didn't make as much sense, then Whispers
from a Shallow Grave is the movie for you. It's not a terrible
film and Tempe DVD does have
really good prices if you order DVDs directly from their site, but there
are a lot of better movies out there.